Mabel laughed uneasily. 'I ask for romance, and you offer me almond-pudding. Oh, I should like to go to a Jewish party where there wasn't almond-pudding!'
'You shall—in Palestine,' he laughed back.
She pouted again. 'All roads lead to Palestine.'
'They do,' he said seriously. 'Without Palestine our past is a shipwreck and our future a quicksand.'
She looked frightened again. 'But what should we do there? We can't pray all day long.'
'Of course not,' he said eagerly. 'There's the new generation to train for its glorious future. I shall teach in the Arts and Crafts School. Bezalel, it's called; isn't that a beautiful name? It's from Bezalel, the first man mentioned in the Bible as filled with Divine wisdom and understanding in all manner of workmanship.'
She shook her head. 'You'll be excommunicated. The Palestine Rabbis always excommunicate everything and everybody.'
He laughed. 'What do you know about Palestine?'
'More than you think. Father gets endless letters from there with pressed flowers and citrons, and olive-wood boxes and paper-knives—a perennial shower. The letters are generally in the most killing English. And he won't let me laugh at them because he has a vague feeling that even Palestine spelling and grammar are holy.'
Barstein laughed again. 'We'll send all the Rabbis to Jericho.'